On the Mechanism of International Technology Diffusion for Energy Productivity Growth

Wei Jin () and ZhongXiang Zhang

No 2014.40, Working Papers from Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei

Abstract: International diffusion of advanced environment and energy-related technologies has received much attention in recent environmental economics studies. As a much needed complement to the “black box” complex numerical modelling, this paper contributes to developing a simple, intuitive analytical framework to unveil the mechanism of international technology diffusion for energy productivity growth. We draw on the Solow growth model to build a benchmark exogenous framework to explore the basic mechanism of energy technology diffusion. This exogenous model is then extended to a Romer-type endogenous one where the R&D-induced expansion of energy technology varieties is used to represent the deep structure of technology diffusion. We show that the growth rates of energy productivity are the same across countries in the balanced growth path equilibrium, but the cross-country differences in the efficiency of foreign technology absorption and indigenous innovation lead to cross-country divergence in the levels of energy productivity. The economy that has a stronger capacity of assimilating foreign technology diffusion and undertaking indigenous innovation tends to gain a higher level of energy productivity.

Keywords: Technological Innovation; Energy Technology Diffusion; Solow Growth Model; Endogenous Growth Model (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: F18 O13 O31 O33 O44 Q43 Q48 Q55 Q58 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014-04
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cse, nep-eff, nep-ene, nep-env, nep-gro and nep-ino
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://feem-media.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/w ... oads/NDL2014-040.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: On the Mechanism of International Technology Diffusion for Energy Productivity Growth (2014)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:fem:femwpa:2014.40

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working Papers from Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Alberto Prina Cerai ( this e-mail address is bad, please contact ).